


Dark Energy

by mazabm



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: F/F, Future Fic, Gen, Summer and Rick adventure!, Summer and Rick bonding, Summer and Rick save the world!, summer is in college and still has to deal with bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-21 21:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16584527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazabm/pseuds/mazabm
Summary: Summer gets out and by out she means college and her own actions drag her right back in.Rick should have expected this eventually, she is the most like him after all.Or Summer and Rick save the world and definitely don’t talk about emotions.“College students discover the recipe for dark energy, opening doors to new forms of energy and travel.” The T.V reporter says.  A cute kid with brown hair and freckles beams into the camera.“It wasn’t just me, we had so much help.” She says with a laugh.“Fuck.”  Rick says, putting his tools down.“Hey, isn’t that Summer?”  Beth asks wandering in the room and there under the arm of the cute kid, a familiar redhead smirks into the camera and it all clicks for Rick.





	Dark Energy

**Author's Note:**

> Summer is a Junior in college, that makes Morty 17-ish? It's been about three years since she's been at home long term. 
> 
> I suck at science so none of this accurate (I literally just kept asking my physics major girlfriend if this was possible and then I didn't understand what she was saying so I just went with it)
> 
> Christina and Summer are dating-ish.

“Uh, Rick, you might wanna see this.”  Rick looks up from where he’s working, the T.V is a low hum in his subconscious and he looks up at his grandson.  The look on his face causes him to pause.” This news is in our dimension, right?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” It comes off bothered but that’s practically his default setting.  Morty turns it up and the words from the T.V come though.

“College students discover the recipe for dark energy, opening doors to new forms of energy and travel.” The T.V reporter says.  A cute kid with brown hair and freckles beams into the camera.

“It wasn’t just me, we had so much help.” She says with a laugh.

“Fuck,”  Rick says, putting down his tools. 

“Hey, isn’t that Summer?”  Beth asks wandering in the room and there under the arm of the cute kid, a familiar redhead smirks into the camera and it all clicks for Rick.

“Fuck.”

 

Morty doesn’t even realize Rick has left after the conversation until he hears arguing in the garage.

“You can’t just kidnap people because you feel like it, Rick.”  And Summer is seething. “I was doing really important work.”

“I can do whatever I want to a fucking rat.” And Morty connects the dots really fast.

 

“I didn’t tell anyone your fucking recipe.”  Summer snarls at Rick. She’s furious, practically vibrating with anger.  Since she went off to college, she came home less and less until not at all.  Morty hadn’t seen her in months, she looks good, he thinks, healthy.

“So, explain to me in what w-world is it possible for your fucking useless school to be able to pull of this technology?  Oh right, none of them.” Rick never mellowed out, but he had relatively been saving his biting bitterness for his enemies and not his family, the way he was lashing out at Summer hadn’t been seen in the house for a while.

“You don’t have the monopoly on dark matter, people have been researching this for years.”  The fact that Summer was taking the time to be logical with Rick when Morty knew she was furious showed how much she had grown.

“And none of them had been even close to figuring it out until you told them!”  Summer screams in frustration turning from Rick

“You clearly don’t believe me when I say that _I_ didn’t do it!  Take me back to school!” And she eyes the spaceship, the portal gun being out of reach in Rick’s pockets.

“No!  Not until you help me-help me fix what you’ve done.”  And Rick is pacing his workshop, it’s then Morty realizes it’s a mess, practically all the storage is open, it looks like Rick got robbed.  But that was impossible, wasn’t it?

“Fix?  Humanity is about to embark on the next frontier, what’s to fix?”  And Rick goes still and Morty hasn’t been scared of the man forever, but right now, he’s terrified for Summer.  Summer, who is glaring coldly at Rick, so sure of herself. He tries to remember the last time he saw his sister smile, probably when she graduated.

“Morty, get out.” And Morty starts, not realizing they even knew he was there.

“B-But Rick, I’m not a kid anymore, you can’t just.” But he stops because Rick’s eyes are stony (just like Summer’s)

“Now.”

 

“Don’t be an asshole to him.” Summer snaps at Rick once Morty is gone and the man gives her a cold smile.  “Remember you made a promise,”

“You know what, let’s talk, let's talk about promises!” And she narrowly stops herself from stamping her foot in anger.  Rick always did make her feel like a child. “I’ve kept up my end of the deal. I gave you and Morty that recipe, only you two pieces of shit!”

“Don’t pretend you did that out the goodness of your heart, Rick.  You did it because you thought you were dying and wanted to leave us something that wasn’t shitty."  And God, Senior Year feels so far away now. 

“I gave it to you, assholes because I trusted you to be better than I was with it.  Not release it to the number one, number one warmongering country in the world!” And Summer blinks, it’s a weakness that Rick pounces on, he’s in her space and his smile is cruel and his words are biting.  “You really think your little girlfriend can keep that t-technology out the hands of other species on our planet much less your own government?”

“Christina’s smart.  She can handle herself.”  Her voice wobbles and Rick’s laugh makes her want to curl in on herself.

“And your government will fucking destroy her if her own _new_ invention doesn’t do it first.” He’s mocking her, and she remembers why she hates this damn house so much and him along with it. She shoves him, expects him to push her back, he doesn’t, he barely moves, she just wants him to do anything else but be right here making her feel like she's back being that stupid fucking teenager.

“Then help me save her!”  And he stops moving, looking down at her.  “If you know so much help me fix this! Rick, I can't lose her, I love her.”  And she’s not some high schooler crying over some boy, she’s a grown woman and the woman she loves is in danger, because of her wanting to, well that didn't matter now.  Rick tilts his head.

“Get in the ship, Summer.”

 

It’s silent in the ship and she can almost pretend that she’s back in high school on a late-night adventure, that Morty is in the back seat, passed out, that Rick is still that godlike figure in her head but then she remembers that Rick himself fucked all that up and that they are on a mission.

“So, what's the plan?”  She asks, she feels way out her league, she hadn’t planned for this.  She knew he would find out eventually, she had thought she would be more ready.  She definitely hadn’t expected him to upend how she felt about her own experiment.  

“Get my shit back, there is no way to sustain any type of dark m-matter reactor here on Earth, we don’t have any of the materials.”  And it’s here that he glares at her. “I wonder how she managed to get any of the shit she needed.”

“I gave her one thing, alright?!”  Summer admits quietly. “Not the recipe, just the,” And her voice trails off and he growls.  “The necklace, with the quintessence blood.” And she watches his hands flex on the wheel. “I didn’t think she would figure it out from that!”

“She didn’t.”  And she already knows that he’s about to give her that don’t trust anyone speech, he’s about to tell her she’s the biggest fucking idiot in the galaxy for giving a junior physics student, one of the most volatile elements in the galaxy but he doesn’t.   He leaves it at that.

Rick’s contact lets them know that the reactor is too new to move from her campus and besides watchers, no other scientists have been even able to get close enough to it.

“We barely slept for the last week because we were worried about the reactor going off, we weren’t even sure what would happen if it did explode.”  And it feels kinda freeing to finally talk to someone who actually knows what they're talking about, someone that hadn't been only running on hypotheticals for years. 

“Probably k-kill everything in a 500-mile radius.” And he sounds so sure, like he’s learned from experience, and she knows he has.  She wonders what world he sacrificed to learn about it.

“That’s as big as Texas.” And Rick laughs (none of his laughs have actually been humorous, it's more like he’s laughing at her and she can’t help but feel so fucking stupid.)

“That’s if you're lucky, no by actually using the reactor, fucking outdated, you’re allowing the dark energy to grow in size like it's a fucking galaxy.  Did you, did you dipshits even think about that?!”

“It would have to be creating new matter and it’s not, we did our research, Rick.  Earth is too small to sustain anything like that so it’s unlikely to occur” And he just looks at her like she’s not getting it and she feels so stupid next to him like she could never get anything right.

“I swear I didn’t teach you to be so damn gullible.  Your baby reactor explodes, creates a black hole that uses Earth to sustain it and then it takes out the next closest thing, like the moon, Venus, Mars and then the whole fucking solar system.” He gulps back his flask. 

“Oh my god.” And she had been behind a lot of the research, she was the one that edited Christiana’s proposal, has got this possible destruction all over her hands.  She just wanted, well that doesn't matter now. “How do we stop it?” And Rick tips his flask back again (and she rolls her eyes because shit never changes)

“We have to depower it.” And the teenage Summer that she hasn't completely killed glows at we, they were doing this together.  “If you broke down the quintessence blood down to its particles in order to merge it in order to ground it to get this form of dark matter than the energy system is using a crystal.” He darts a glance at her.

“Yeah, a phonic crystal was the only one that didn't shatter and allowed a space for the reaction to happen.” He grumbles but finally looks like she didn’t say something completely stupid.

"The removal of the crystal and the compressing of the quintessence particles should be able to power down the reactor without everything going completely to shit.”

“How do we do that without alerting everyone?”  And he looks over at her like he's watching her, judging, critiquing.

“We figure it out, kid.”  

 

Landing back on her campus is surreal.  Rick sends her ahead and she tries to pull the college Summer back, tries to feel like she did just a few hours ago, so fucking elated, so fucking cocky.  They had done something that no one else on Earth had ever done (except Rick and he didn’t publish his research) but they had done it, their team.

She can still remember meeting Christina at that party, the girl’s smile so contagious.  She had slid right into Summer’s life, she had been so beautiful, and Summer had been so caught up so fast.  Christiana had this big idea of using dark energy to power the United States, help the world but it was all so completely hypothetical, half of it contradictory to anything Rick had ever taught Summer, she had just wanted to give the other woman a hint!  

And the next month, Christina had the specs for a reactor written and from there it had spiraled so fucking quickly, she couldn’t even go home anymore because every week, Christina was getting closer and closer to actually creating dark matter.

It didn’t match Rick’s recipe, but she had felt that was okay, they were going to do it their way, and now everyone is in danger.  

“Summer!”  Christina embraces her hard.  “Where have you been? You just vanished.”

“I uh, I had to take care of something.”  She grips Christina’s hands. “Who’s by the reactor right now?  How stable is it?” Christina recoils a little at her intensity.

“What?? I mean it’s had a few fluctuations, but we think we might attempt to power it down to transfer it to a NASA facility.  Summer, they’ve offered me full funding for my continued research, I don’t have to finish school, I can just go!” She’s smiling, and Summer’s heart breaks a little.

“There’s no way to power it down without destabilizing the matter, it’s going to explode.”  And Christina’s face goes blank for a second and then it falls.

“No, no we’ve done tests and,”

“And every time it began to destabilize so we had to turn it back on.  We can’t transport it!”

“We can’t leave it, it’s dangerous!  There is this scientist from NASA who is furious that we made a reactor with this much energy with no way to run it off.  I’ve been trying to run it into batteries but it’s not working as a nuclear battery and you’re right we can’t turn it off.  It just keeps accumulating!”

“We have to evacuate the building.” And Christina is shaking her head.   And Summer is so frustrated. “Christina, that reactor is a bomb and it will destroy everything.”

“All those reporters and scientists in there, some more are flying in tonight, we can’t.”

“They will die unless we do something now.  We have to turn it off.” And Christina looks at her like she’s seeing her for the first time.

“You’ve already decided what you’re going to do.” And Summer wonders if that was how it felt to be around Rick knowing that he had already taken your own decisions into consideration and altered them to fit his plan, knowing that his end destination was already decided, and you were just along for the ride.  Summer nods and her lips thin to a thin line. “Don’t get yourself killed.” And Christina leans in and kisses her cheek.

“Forgive me?”  Summer whispers and Christina’s smile is sad.

 

“We’re evacuating the building due to the reactor being unstable,”  Christina says to one of the scientists as they huddle people out. “No, you cannot tell me how to fix my reactor, it’s working as it should, dark matter is highly unstable.”

Summer slides past her and when Rick pops into existence beside her, she rolls her eyes.  

“Ready, old man?”  And he glares at her, but it isn’t as hot as his expression when he had pulled her through the portal earlier (and it's crazy that was just a few hours ago)

“Come on, dumbass.”

 

Getting closer to the reactor, there are more signs that the machine is unstable, the walls seem to curve inward, gravity doesn't quick feel like it's keeping her to the ground.  There is only one person by the reactor when they get in the central chamber, Rick falters by her side when he sees her.

“You have gotta be fucking kidding me.”

 

“You were always so predictable.” The woman, a strawberry blonde says and Summer freezes, it sounds so familiar.

“Grandpa, who is?” And the woman turns, and it clicks for Summer.  “Grandma.” Beth's parents, she realizes, really did a number on her.

“Hello Summer, Hello Rick.”  She walks over to them where Rick seems to be rapidly trying to drown himself in his flask.  “I knew you wouldn’t be able to help yourself, especially when it seemed like you had been betrayed.” And she eyes Summer coolly and Summer realizes she really doesn’t know what the fuck is going on.  

“W-What the hell do you want?” And Rick sounds so damn annoyed like he’s extremely tired of the turn of events.  

“You are here I assume to stop the reactor from exploding.”  And she smirks. “You’re going to do that and when you merge the quintessence particles, you are going to give them to me.”

“And if I, if I don’t?”  And she laughs, and Summer’s blood goes cold.  

“I could threaten Summer,” And Summer takes a step back, and her grandmother watches her with an amused expression.  “But if I’m correct you have a little bit under six hours to power down the reactor and you’re going to because if you don’t you, Summer here, and the entire planet will die.” Summer really led Rick right into a trap (if they get out of this, he is so going to kill her)

“You're assuming I care.”  Summer is in high school and there is a gun to her head, Summer is in a ship headed for a crash course, Summer is all grown up now and Rick is not going to hold her life in his hands.   So, Summer and her grandmother roll their eyes. Rick is bluffing, he’s always bluffing.

“You can’t bluff me, Rick, you’re going to do it because there is no alternative.”   And she’s seen Rick at a lost more than once but right now, Summer has come to the conclusion that Rick really lost.  “I know you, you're going to do it.” And she sounds like she's gloating, and Beth turned out so normal if she had parents like this!

“Grandpa,” She starts and she's not really sure what's she's going to say.

“Fine, we’ll do it” And now Summer realizes she really doesn't know what the fuck is going on, Rick doesn't give up ever (except to sacrifice himself for them, oh fuck)

“What?!” Summer starts.  “But we can't just,” And Rick does that cruel hacking of a laugh he does when they're screwed.

“Give it up Summer.  Let's do this.” When he grabs her arm and drags her to the console, she can't help but wonder why he isn't just abandoning them, why he isn't just hopping dimensions because none of the outcomes of this are going to be good.  “When I say so, shut it down. I mean it, Summer, you better be listening.” He glances over at her grandmother. “Y-You helping? It will be just like old times.” And there is so much bitterness in his voice, Summer wants to winch.

“I'll watch.” Her grandmother says, frowning at him.

 

It seems to work perfectly.  Summer had read the specs for the reactor a thousand times, so she can tell when Rick frees the crystal, can see when the dark matter begins to shrink as he merges the particles.

“Now Summer!” And she slams the emergency shut down lever, ignoring the flashing lights as she quickly keys in the shutdown code.  She has a moment of clarity when she realizes that if they got this wrong she's going to die. But then the flashing stops, and Rick is inside the reactor banging on the glass.

“What the fuck?” She tries unlocking it from the console and keeps getting error messages.  Her grandmother laughs looking at him.

“You know your Christina really asked why I would want a way to lock the reactor door."  And Summer knew she should have asked more questions about where their funding even came from.  "I knew that you wouldn’t want to use your portal generator because your current model destroys the quintessence particles, and well that leaves you just stuck doesn't it?” And Summer realizes that she really let Rick walk right into a trap (and he is so killing her if they get out of here) “It only triggers with your shutdown code, so thank you.” And Summer feels used and dirty right now.

“Bitch.” She says, and her grandmother laughs again.  Doing the math, honestly, the apple didn’t fall too far from either tree.  

“Fuck you.” Rick snarls, the glass doesn't muffle his fury.  “I have your damn quintessence, let’s settle this, D!” Summer watches her grandmother pull out something eerily close to her grandpa's portal gun.

“I don't have time for that, hand it over.” Her grandmother says and the portal that opens in the reactor is purple.  Rick looks furious as he drops a necklace in the portal. Her grandmother's smile finally seems real. “Considering that I’m not turning you in, this is a favor.”  She turns to Summer. “Be safe, dear.” And then she's gone.

“Grandpa!” Summer says as she rapidly tries to get him out the reactor.  “What are we going to do, she can't keep it! I'm so sorry I didn't stop her I didn't, I couldn't,”

“Summer shut the fuck up.” And she stops talking.  “You okay?” And she nods, and he closes his eyes and breathes out.  “Okay, good.”

“Why didn't you leave?” And he knows she’s talking about dimension hopping, knows she's asking why he didn't abandon then again.

“I made a promise to you, didn't I?” And she's back in high school on the night of her graduation drunk crying to Rick, she's begging Rick not to leave Morty, she had been so pathetic.

“I don't care what happens to me,” she had said, “keep him.”

“I wouldn't have been able to keep it, dumbass”  And she doesn't stop herself from hugging him, before remembering herself and stepping back.  “Stop the sappy shit, Summer.” But there is no heat in it and she realizes she has missed him so much.   He breathes out again, pushes his hair back.

“Aren’t we going to go stop her?  Where is she going to go, do you know who she works for, we can?”  She’s calculating how long she can be gone before it negatively affects her, it’s her fault that her grandmother got away with the quintessence.   She just wanted to prove to him that she could be just as smart as he was.

“Summer, quit it okay?”  He says. “You’re done. G-Go kiss your girl, reveal you saved her and the only thing you have left is this.”  And he holds a necklace out to her.

“Is that the quintessence?” And Rick rolls his eyes. 

“No, dipshit it’s the dark matter.” And she’s shaking her head.

“You can’t be serious, No, we’re going to go hunt down Grandma, we’re gonna get the particles back,” And Rick looks at her perplexed.

“You wanted out Summer.   This is out! You don’t get some adventure with me, you go back to your pathetically normal boring life where all your peers aren’t half as smart as you and you hate it especially because you just gave the smartest person here a way out from you!”  He does that laugh again. “You don't think I don't know you did all this because you were bored, you wanted some type of attention, or you wanted to prove yourself or some shit. Maybe you are just like your shitty father.” 

“Fuck you, Rick!”  she snarls. “You don't know shit, I just wanted to,”

“What, show how clever you are?  Show that you can do it just like your Grandpa Rick, well you can’t.”

“Except I did!  Christina didn't come up with the specs I did that, I had the idea to split the quintessence particles, I was the one that stepped in the reactor first.” She steps in close to him, she's so angry.  “You don't get to be the only one with adventures Rick!” And he's staring at her and she feels like that dumbass teenager. “I get to decide what I do and right now I want to help Rick, let me finish what I started.” He just looks at her for a bit before he rolls his eyes.

“Me and D do this every few years,” And he sounds so bitter when he says this like he’s just accepted it.  “This time it looks like she won, bringing you into this. She,” And he clenches his fist. “I’ll get her next time but for now I', I'm going to go home, watch some interdimensional T.V.”  He looks at her, watching, critiquing.

“Can I come?”  And she hates how small her voice is and the way he frowns at her.  “I haven’t seen an episode of Ball Fondlers in years.” He opens his mouth to respond and then tilts his head.

 

“Summer!”  And she doesn’t get to get Rick’s response because the man is gone by the time Christina is right in front of her.  “You did it! How?”

“Moving the crystal and compressing the particles, then triggering the shutdown, unfortunately, it practically destroyed all of it, I only managed to keep this.”  The lie is almost too easy, and the way Christina’s smile takes over her face when she sees the small piece of matter contained. “Is that going to be enough for NASA?”  Summer asks, trying not to cry.

“Yes!”  And the hug they share is really fierce and tight.  “You have to come with me,” Christina says and Summer thinks about her grandparents, thinks about her own future and shakes her head.

“I think, I think I’m done with this science shit, I didn’t even think this would work.”  Christina hugs her tight again, and Summer shuts her eyes tight to stop her tears. “You did it, you made this possible.” And Christina holds her at arm’s length, and Summer feels seen.

“Than what now?” And Summer dedicated so much of this semester to this, that she really pauses thinking about her answer.

“I think I’m gonna go home.”  And when Christina looks confused, she smiles, grabbing the other girl’s hands.  “I have things to take care of.” And Christina kisses her, and Summer really feels like this is an ending.

“I guess I have to go talk to the press and scientists, huh?”  And Summer can already see the question in her eyes and she shakes her head.  

“This is all you Chris.”  And the other woman nods, a soft sad smile 

“Don’t get yourself killed Sum.”  And Summer smiles.

“I’ll try my best.”

 

Rick is waiting by the spaceship, leaning against it, with his sunglasses on.  He still sticks out like a sore thumb.

“T-Took you long enough.  All the pencil pushers are going crazy.”  He grumbles. He holds out his hand and there is a pair of sunglasses in it, and she smiles without stopping herself, as she grabs them.  “Same rules, as usual, no phones in the ship!”

“Fuck you, old man.” She says but she smiles, and he rolls his eyes and she hops in the side of the ship.  “We’re not really going home to watch T.V, are we?” And Rick snorts, throwing back his flask.

“Hell no.”  

**Author's Note:**

> This is a working title if anyone has a better one please let me know!  
> I'm all caught up with Rick and Morty and I have a few more of these in me.


End file.
